


Shared Pain

by UglyJackal



Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: i love hraesvelgr so much, mentions of jack's past and his family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 13:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16018916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/UglyJackal
Summary: There was no denying that something so catastrophic as this could forge a bond between two souls.





	Shared Pain

His pain was palpable in the very motes of the atmosphere as soon as his great body settled on the stone before them. Cracks in the ground spread from his claws akin to the craters splitting across his heart. His heavy head lifted, jaws open in a snarl to shake the moon itself, his single eye burning with so much emotion that it was difficult to know where to begin. 

Dravanian tongue echoed in Jack’s mind as the last remaining great wyrm spoke. 

‘Impenitent mortals, ever seeking to bury old wrongs with new,’ he said, ‘I did sense the moment of Nidhogg’s demise.’

Jack looked down, away from the piercing gaze of the dragon. Oh, how he knew that pain. 

‘You mean the moment I prised your eye from his head?’ Estinien said, accusingly, in his hands the eye that he took from the wyrm of destruction, held out to the dragon with scales made of ice. 

Ysayle looked as though it was a personal offence against her.

Estinien handed the eye to Jack, who looked up at Hraesvelgr. By the Gods, the age and the weariness on the dragon’s face was carved into his every scale, into every muscle. He deserved this. As he held up the Eye, it started to glow, and then floated back over to its rightful owner, after years of being apart from him. The dragon seemed stunned by the act and looked down at Jack in curiosity. Jack only smiled, glad that he could bring back half of the light to the old wyrm. 

A moment later and a pain struck through his head, and he was flung into a vision. Where Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr conversed upon the crest of the dark dragon’s eyes being snatched from him. Jack witnessed the exchange of the white wyrm’s eye for his penchance, and then he was back, standing in front of the dragon himself once more. 

‘You witnessed a vision from mine own past,’ he said, grief heavy on his words. He was about to continue when-

‘You gave Nidhogg your eye, knowing the death and destruction that would come with it?!’ Ysayle interrupted, her anger brimming in the air around her. 

Jack looked away and gritted his jaw. 

He didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation, angry memories filling his head and blocking his ears. But he looked up just in time to see the tail of the great wyrm disappearing into the fog. 

Jack turned back to look at his companions, a sigh rippling from his chest. ‘May I be excused a moment?’ he asked, already climbing into the seat of the manacutter and inserting the key into it. 

He received nods of agreement and promptly left, gliding away from the platform and towards the forests. 

Perched in a tree, the cutter on the ground below him, Jack thought long and hard. 

He understood the pain that manifested in Hraesvelgr’s stomach, he was no stranger to the loss of his siblings either. He had lost his brother when his parents had thrown him out, and though he was not dead, it was highly unlikely that they would ever see each other again, so he may as well have been. 

And it hurt like no lost eye or stung pride ever could. 

It was like taking away the heart itself, and replacing it with only loosely-wrapped bandages sealing it together. 

It was like taking down the sun and the moon from the sky, so that there was no escaping the darkness that would nibble and scratch at the ankles. 

Jack looked up at the sky, wondering if tears could fall from the eyes of a dragon. 

He vowed to return to Hraesvelgr’s lair and share that information with him. Maybe further encounters would go a little smoother if they shared a mutual knowledge of the sun and the moon being plucked from their skies. 

And if it did not, then they at least had their grief, and there was no denying that something so catastrophic as this could forge a bond between two souls. Even if one happened to be a dragon that rocked the winds with his might, and the other a mi’qote who rocked the earth with his black magic. 


End file.
